


A Harp of Bones

by within_a_dream



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal, a travelling minstrel, comes across a corpse and finds himself drawn into a conflict by forces far beyond anything he could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Harp of Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Parts of this were originally posted on Tumblr. It's based on ["The Bonny Swans", by Loreena McKennitt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjF-PY_nTBI), and all of the ballads and folk tales _that_ song is based on.
> 
> Many thanks to Brigdh for betaing!
> 
> ETA: I forgot to mention that this is also a fill for the "standing trial" square on my gen prompt bingo card!

The bones were beautiful.

Hannibal couldn’t say, later, why he’d touched them. It would have been better to find the nearest town and report them to its sheriff, and better yet to ignore them entirely, and avoid the risk of an angry relative blaming the death on the minstrel passing through.

But oh, how they sang to him, begging him to pick them up and twine them together and let them speak. And so he did, although he took his strange harp far from the river’s edge where the rest of the bones lay bleaching in the sun before plucking its golden strings (carefully setting his own harp against a tree, for he’d be hard-pressed to make a living playing on a woman’s breastbone).

The words sprang into his head, in a woman’s voice, high and clear and full of sorrow. Hannibal sank down against a tree and wept for the woman whose last remnants he held in his hands.

“That was a beautiful song.” He looked up to see a woman standing over him, her hair glowing rich in the sunlight. She didn’t seem to notice the nature of the harp in his hands, which frightened him for a moment (what strange magic had taken hold of the world around him, that he’d found a bone-harp no one else could see?) before he realized that if the distance of her glance at him was anything to go by, she was barely able to see him, much less his instrument.

“Are you from the village?”

“Oh, no. My husband and I aren’t welcome there. The forest suits us well, though. I take it you’re a stranger here?”

“I’ve travelled far, selling songs to earn my bread.” A theatrical strum across his harp made her laugh.

“Well, there’s space in our house for you, and room at our table, so long as you promise to play for us.” She extended a hand to help him to his feet, and he followed after her, stowing the bone in his sack. “My name is Rose, by the way.”

“Mine is Hannibal.” _Have you heard word of a missing girl, with hair gold as the sun and a voice like an angel?,_ he wanted to ask, but he held off. It would be better to proceed cautiously. Strangers were always the first to be blamed, after all, and surely his hosts would be quick to share any gossip. He wouldn’t leave without answers, he promised himself, remembering the voice in his head. He owed her that much at least.

The bone harp carefully stowed in his satchel, his own harp in his hand, Hannibal allowed her to lead him to a house nestled in a clearing, surprisingly large and friendly-looking under the dappled light that snaked through the trees. She gave a perfunctory knock at the door before strolling inside, beckoning for Hannibal to follow.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, she was swept into a hug by a large dark man, who planted a kiss to the top of her head and only then seemed to notice Hannibal.

“You’ve brought a friend,” he said, a slight smile on his face.

“Ah, yes. It seems you’ve discovered my secret lover. I intended to run away with him this afternoon, after collecting my belongings.”

“If you run off now, you’ll miss dinner,” Benjamin said, winking.

Rose heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Well, my dearest, it seems our plans will have to wait. You’ll eat with us, of course.”

Hannibal wouldn’t have known how to say no to either of them. The meal was delicious—although whether that was simply because it was more food than he’d had in a long time, Hannibal couldn’t say.

His hosts weren’t content to eat in silence. The conversation turned first to Hannibal’s occupation, and the reason behind it (a topic he usually tried his best to avoid).  

“I loved music, didn’t care for the church, and wanted to see more of the world than my village. Not terribly interesting, I’m afraid. If I may ask, how did you end up exiled to the forest? It sounds like quite a story.”

Benjamin laughed, shaking his head. “It’s not as exciting as all that.”

Rose elbowed him. “It was a bit exciting, admit it. It’s not every day you find yourself accused of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft?” Hannibal hoped he’d hid his excitement well enough. For after all, what could the bone harp be but some sort of magic? He prayed that they might be able to help him somehow.

Benjamin’s next words crushed his hopes. “I’ve always been interested in the healing arts. Rose, too, has a passion for nature, although her interests lie on a more explosive scale than mine. Small-minded people have always scorned what they don’t understand.”

“A man fell dead days after we’d sold medicine to his family. Naturally, my husband and I fell under suspicion. The town sheriff is a fair man, and he discovered the truth of the matter, but many of the townsfolk had already set their minds against us. In the end, we decided it best to make a new home elsewhere.”

“You have no experience with...otherworldly forces, then?”

Rose laughed. “Well, there’s no such thing!” She paused for a moment, frowning at him. “I didn’t mean to offend. It’s my firm belief that a natural explanation exists for everything, even if it may not be possible for us to discern it. Why do you ask?”

“I thought I should assess my risk of being murdered in my sleep to allow you to obtain ingredients for some spell.” Hannibal smiled. “Although I can’t say I agree with you. I’ve seen some things in my travels that I would be hard-pressed to explain.”

“But that doesn’t mean it would be impossible. Or even if it _is_ impossible now to see the sense of things, that doesn’t  mean it will remain so in the future.” Her eyes lit up, and Hannibal found himself drawn in by her enthusiasm. “Imagine how much knowledge is out there, waiting to be discovered. We could discover how illness spreads, or more of how to cure it. We could learn better ways to deliver children or raise crops. The world is marvelous, and there’s so much we don’t know.”

Hannibal wished he could see the world like she could. She made it seem a beautiful place, full of miracles. The only miraculous thing he’d experienced lately was a dead girl’s voice in his head, and singing bones that he was drawn to against his will. He nearly asked Rose how she would explain the ghost that had been shadowing him since he showed up in this godforsaken town, but he thought better of it. She seemed kind, as did her husband, but he had no desire to be written off as insane or possessed.

That night, they sat around the fire, Hannibal with his harp ( _his_ harp, not the strange thing he’d found by the river) on his knee. After a nod at the others, he plucked out the beginning of an old ballad, one he was certain they’d know the words to. Benjamin joined in, his voice a rich bass counterpoint. There was a unique pleasure in making music with someone, one that Hannibal didn’t often have the chance to experience. The way Benjamin’s voice blended with his thrummed in his chest. It seemed they’d only been playing for moments when Hannibal found his mind wandering, remembering a corpse laid out along a riverbank, golden hair curled in knots under her skull. When he returned to the here and now, he found himself playing an entirely different song. Hannibal dragged his fingers across the strings, cutting it off abruptly, and had to fight not to throw his harp to the ground.

“I’ve never heard that before,” Benjamin said.

“It’s new, something I’ve been working on.”

“You were playing it in the forest when I came across you, weren’t you?” Rose smiled. “It’s so sad.”

“It’s for a girl I knew.” Hannibal saw her in his mind’s eye then, dripping wet and crying out for revenge. It was difficult not to clap his hands to his ears, although he sensed that nothing would help drown out her piercing screams. “Would you mind if I slept? I’ve walked far today.”

Although the room was warmer and more comfortable than anywhere he’d slept in years, every time Hannibal drifted off, he saw a girl flailing in the water, cruel hands prying her fingers free of their grasp on the shoreline.

 _She killed me_ , a voice whispered in his ear, words trapped behind the sound of a flowing river. _She killed me, and you must see her punished_.

“I’ll try,” Hannibal said under his breath. It broke his heart, this poor girl’s death, but he was a stranger here. What was he to do? Sleep, hopefully, and deal with the problem when he woke.

“Did you sleep well?” Rose asked the next morning. He could hear the worry in her voice—if even a woman half-blind could tell how weary he was, he _must_ be badly off.

“I’ve been travelling a long while,” he said, praying she wouldn’t probe him further.

Thankfully, soon after that Benjamin asked if Hannibal would be willing to share breakfast with them.

“I couldn’t possibly.” Even a warm place to sleep for the night had been more than he’d expected.

“We have plenty to share, and your playing last night was lovely.” Rose’s smile was welcoming, and Hannibal supposed he’d be a fool to turn down free food.

He’d barely made it through the piece of bread they offered him when the knock at the door came.

“I heard tell you’re harboring a travelling minstrel?” The man outside was gruff and rather dusty, and both Benjamin and Rose seemed to know him.

“Is something the matter?”

Hannibal feared he knew why the man was here, and his next words confirmed it. “There’s been a death.” He stepped inside, gaze fixing on Hannibal. “Where are your belongings?”

“There’s just my harp case.” Hannibal’s voice sounded weak and nervous, even to himself. “I was playing last night, it’s empty--”

“Can I take a look?” It wasn’t a question. Hannibal’s heart sank as he handed it over, dreading the moment he’d be asked to explain.

“Shaw, he’s our guest. Surely this isn’t necessary--” Benjamin cut off when the man (Shaw, Hannibal supposed) pulled the bone harp free from its case.

“I didn’t kill her!” They wouldn’t believe him, Hannibal knew, but it broke his heart to see the horror on their faces. They’d shared so much with him, and they’d be left thinking that they’d invited a murderer into their home. The worst of it was, there was nothing he could say to explain himself. Any explanation, no matter how truthful, would make him sound mad. “You have to understand, I found her and she spoke to me and I couldn’t just leave her there on the ground.”

It terrified him to look back up at them, but at the same time, he felt he had to. Benjamin’s expression was cold, and impossible to read. Rose looked more sad than anything. Hannibal wondered if she were remembering their conversation last night, and wondering if she should have realized sooner. He would have been, in her place, but it was possible he was putting too much weight on words that had barely meant anything to her.

In any case, it hurt far too much to lose the good opinion of people he’d met only a day before. Hannibal allowed Shaw to take his arm without resistance--what else was he supposed to do? There was no one left in this town to speak for him, and given the state he was in, he wouldn’t make it far if he tried to run. It would be better to resign himself to his fate.

“You’re going to have to come with me.” Slinging the case over his shoulder, Shaw led him away.

The room they locked him in was cold and damp, and sound echoed strangely off the stone walls. Every time he shut his eyes he heard the dead girl’s voice calling to him, demanding that he help her. After enduring half a night of shouting in his ear, he couldn’t bear it anymore.

“I can’t do it!” Hannibal cried out. The unfortunate man they’d set to guard him opened the door just wide enough to shout at him to keep quiet. “I can’t help you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” The voice faded after that, but it still tugged at the corners of his thoughts.

He must have looked a nightmare when they dragged him in front of the lord of the manor the next morning. He _felt_ a nightmare, his mind fraying at the edges where the girl’s voice pulled at it. The lord and lady looked at him with disgust, but that was nothing compared to the hatred in the eyes of the tall, slim girl standing beside them—the sight of whom sent a dagger of pain through Hannibal’s chest. He flinched as a scream no one else could hear filled the air. The lord was saying something, but it was impossible to make out. Finally, the noise faded, and Hannibal caught an irritated, “—your name?”

“Hannibal Sefton, sir.”

“He was seen near the body, and this found in his possession.”  Shaw stepped forward, the bone harp in his hands.

Hannibal found himself humming under his breath, fingers tracing over the chords he longed to play. “Please, may I hold it? I’ll explain, I swear, just let me have the harp. Only for a moment.”

He sounded like a lunatic, but by some miracle of miracles, Shaw relinquished the instrument to him. His fingers skittered over the strings, and when he opened his mouth, a voice not his own came out.

“Those are my sister’s bones!” the woman beside the thrones shouted. “Take them from him immediately.”

Between the song flowing from him and the frenetic shrieking inside his head, Hannibal could barely follow what was happening. From the harp sprung a tale of a lover spurned, a sister’s jealousy, a fatal walk by the riverbank. The shouts in his head grew louder the longer he looked at the woman: _horrible traitorous monstrous jealous murderer murderer **murderer**_!

“It wasn’t enough for him to murder my sister, he had to desecrate her corpse as well! Take her away from him!”

The chords came to a jagged stop. Hannibal turned to look square at her, and a high, clear voice took hold of his lips to say, “Anne.”

“There can be no doubt he killed her.” Her voice was shrill with panic, and Hannibal was vaguely aware of Shaw looking at her skeptically, before the dead girl seized control again.

“Did you truly think Cedric would love you more as a murderess than as a petty, jealous wretch?”

“I _demand_ you take him away!”

The laugh that erupted from Hannibal’s chest drowned out her protests. “Even here, in a gathering meant to bring me justice, you wear the necklace you tore from my throat!”

A nervous brush of fingers to collar revealed a glimmer of gold around her neck, which she quickly tried to hide further beneath her dress.

“I think you should show us that necklace, milady.”

She glared at Shaw, showing an anger greater even than that with which she’d looked at Hannibal. “Are you truly taking the word of a deranged vagrant over mine?”

“Well, if he’s lying, you don’t have nothing to worry about, do you?”

Anne reluctantly tugged the charm free. A strapping lad stepped forward from the crowd of spectators, squinting at the necklace. “That was Margaret’s. Where did you get that?”

“It was an accident.” Her voice crept ever-higher, the necklace shaking in her hands. “We were walking along the river, and she fell in. I reached out to grab her, and instead I caught the necklace, and I…”

“Liar!” It would never stop being unsettling, the sound of another’s voice coming from his mouth.

Anne narrowed her eyes at Hannibal. “Oh, do you want the truth, Margaret? You stole everything that belonged to me, _everything_. You were always fairer than me, kinder than me, but that wasn’t enough, no. He was _mine_ , and you took him, with nary a thought for what I was supposed to do without a husband!” Her hand drifted to her stomach.

“I do believe we’ve resolved matters, then.” As the lord locked a hand around his daughter’s arm, the soul that had weighed so heavily on Hannibal’s shoulders the past two days left him, and he sank to his knees, the harp clattering to the ground.  Shaw laid a hand on his shoulder, and knelt down to speak to him.

“Rose seemed to think you wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’m glad she was right. She said to tell you they’d keep your harp safe until all this got sorted.”

“Thank you,” Hannibal whispered. It took him a long while to stand, and even longer before his legs had stopped quivering enough that he could walk. He retraced the path to the house in the woods without thinking. As soon as he opened the door, Rose wrapped him in a hug, and Benjamin wasn’t far behind.

“You’re staying the night,” Rose said when she caught him looking at the door.

 _You met me yesterday_ , Hannibal wanted to say. _How did you know I didn’t kill her?_ Instead, he said, “Thank you. For watching my harp,” and hoped that they could hear that he meant to thank them for so much more.

When he awoke the next morning, they told him that the dead girl’s sister had been sentenced to hang.

“They won’t carry it out until the baby is born,” Benjamin said. “She’ll be held in the manor until then.”

Rose insisted he stay another night, and Benjamin that he stay a third, and eventually Hannibal stopped saying that he would leave. They never seemed short on food, and to tell the truth, he’d grown to like it here, even if he often felt like a deadweight. They played together nearly every night.

The lord’s daughter gave birth to a baby girl that fall, and named her Margaret. She was hanged before the first snow, and Hannibal stayed away. He didn’t have the stomach to see another girl die, he told Rose and Benjamin, and they understood. The day of the hanging, he tried to play her song again (hoping for…closure, maybe, or some sense of meaning), and found he no longer remembered it. Spring came, then summer, and the house in the woods began to feel like home. He found no more bones by the riverbank, and all was well with the world: or at least, as well as it could be.


End file.
